Welting.



J. A. BROGAN.

WELTING.

APPLICATION FILED 0:13.19. 1914..

Lglfigsw PatentedSept. 25,1917.

JAMES A BROGAN, OF LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO UNITED SHOE MACHINERY COMPANY, OF PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

WELTIN G.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 25, 1917.

Original application filed October 24, 1913, Serial No. 797,025. Divided and this application filed December 19, 1914. Serial No. 878,176.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMns A. BnooAN, a citizen of the United States, reslding at Lawrence, in the county of Essex and Com monwealth of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Weltings; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

The present invention relates to an improved welting for use in making welt shoes.

In preparing the welting for use in making shoes known to the trade as Goodyear welt shoes, a stitch receiving groove is cut in the lower or flesh face of the latter and a bevel is cut in the inner edge of the upper or grain face of the leather. According to the general practice heretofore, the groove has been cut by means of a grooving knife which operates to remove a small, half round strip of leather from the flesh side to form the groove, and the bevel has been cut by means of a beveling knife which operates to skive off the grain surface of the leather at the inner corner. A welting thus prepared has certain disadvantages. The. thin layer of grain fiber at the grain surface of the welt is" 80 the most dense and strongest part of the leather. In beveling the welt by skiving off the grain surface, the grain fiber is cut away so that the inseam, which often passes from the bottom of the groove through the skived surface of the welt, is supported only by the softer and weaker fiber forming the inner layers of the leather and it is not infrequent for the inseam to be pulled through the welt. Moreover, it often happens that in sewing the welt to the lasted shoe, the inseam will be sewed so near to the inner edge of the welt that the skived surface is partially visible in the crease between the upper and the welt. Where blacked welting is used, the

appearance of the lighter colored skived leather is particularly noticeable and necessitates blackening the crease when the shoe is finished. The removal of the half round strip of material in cutting the groove, still further tends to weaken the portion of the welt which receives the inseam and allows the stitches of the inseam to be more easily pulled through the welt.

The objects of the present invention are to of its upper face and the material which has been consolidated by compression is located between the groove and the bevel. To c0nsolidate the desired portion of the welting, the stitch receiving groove or the bevel, or both, may be Wholly or partially formed by compressing the welting. To secure the greatest degree of strength and to obviate the necessity of removing any of the grain surface of the welting, however preferably both the groove and the bevel are formed without removing any of the material of the strip.

In addition to the features above referred to the present invention also consists in a welting having certain novel features hereinafter-*described and claimed the advantages of which will be obvious to those skilled in the art from the following description.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a section of a leather strip which may be used in producing a welting embodying the invention.

Fig. 2 is a section of the strip after being subjected to one of the operations which may be formed upon the strip in producing the welting.

Fig. 3 is a section of the strip after being subjected to another operation which may be performed upon the strip in producing the welting.

Fig. 4 is a section of the preferred form of the completed welting.

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the welting showing its body laterally deflected to concave the inner edge. I

Fig. 6 is a vertical section illustrating the operation of the one pair of molding rolls and Fig. 7 is a vertical section illustrating the operation of a second pair of molding rolls in forming the improved welting.

The method herein disclosed of preparing the improved welting and the machine illustrated in the drawing for use in its preparation are identical to those described in my copending application, Serial No. 797,025, filed October 2%, 1913 of which this application forms a division. Reference is hereby made to the above mentioned application for a detailed description of the construction and operation of parts of the machine for making my improved welting, since only a brief description of the machine is given in this application.

The welting illustrated in the drawing is made frc m a strip of leather of substantially rectangular cross section and having a finished grain surface as illustrated'in Fig. 1. In the machine illustrated in the drawings, the strip is first softened or tempered in the .moistening device and is drawn past a slitting knife which operates to cut a slit 10 in its flesh face extending partially through the strip. From the slittingknife the strip passes between a pair of molding rolls which operate to open and enlarge the slit, cut by the knife and mold the bevel on the inner margin of the grain face of the strip. From the pair of rolls the strip passes to a second pair of molding rolls which operate to complete the enlargement of the slit into a stitch receiving grooveand to complete the formation of the molded bevel on the inner margin of the strip. As the welting leaves the machine, a deflector molds or bends the welting laterally to concave its inner or beveled edge so that when the welting dries it retains a permanent lateral deflection or bend. With this bending operation the fibers of the inner concaved edge are crowded together and the fibers of the outer convexed edge appear to be stretched or lengthened.

The completed welt, as shown in Fig. 4, has an inseam receiving groove 118 of substantially the same form as that hereto-fore formed by means of a grooving knife. lnstead of forming the groove by cutting out the material, the pressing machineoperates to displace the material which was cut out by the old method, the material which is displaced from the groove being forced under pressure into the body of the welt. Instead of skiving off the material at the inner margin of the grain face, as heretofore done, this material is displaced under pressure to form a the bevel. The displacement of the material at the bevel causes a consolidation of the leather and" also causes the inner margin to be displaced angularly orbent toward the fi'esh face of the strip. The operation of molding the groove in the welt serves to compress or consolidate under pressure the fibers of the leather thus strengthening the material forming the walls of the groove instead of weakening the welt. The inner edge of the welt, which in the method of grooving and beveling heretofore employed, has been weakened by the removal of material, is, in

- grain fiber of the leather. Although it may be desirable for the entire bevel to be covered with grain fiber, it is not necessary as long as the grain fiber surface of theleather extends far enough over the bevel tov sup port the inseam. It is within the contemplation of the present invention to have thegrain fiber surface extend only partially over the entire surface of the bevel. In the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the bevel 119, Fig. l, has a flat grain surface which is inclined to the plane of the welt.

The present invention, however, is not limited to its illustrated embodiment since the rolls may be so shaped that the bevel will not be fiat but have various contours. The important thing is to have the inner margin of the grain side of the welt deflected toward the flesh side of the welt to form an inclined shoulder which fits against the upper of the lastedshoe. The term bevel as used in the claim is, therefore, .intended to be a term of description rather than limitation and to include within its purview der on the grain surface of the welt strip whether it be a flat face like that illustrated in the drawings or of some othercontour. lln describing the welt, the term upper face is intended to refer to the facev welt which lies uppermost and is visible in the completed shoe. The term under face is applied to against theinsole. The inner edge of the weltis the edge which is sewed to the upper and insole in the completed shoe.

While the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been illustrated and described, present invention is not limited to its preferred embodiment but may be embodied of the the shoul-' the face of the welt which lies it is to be understood that the in other constructions within the scope of the invention as set claims: a p

1. As an article of manufacture a strip of welting for use in the manufacture of welt shoes, consisting of a strip of welt material forth. in the following provided with a longitudinal inseam stitch-' receiving groove in its under face near the inner edge and a bevel at the same inner margin of its upper face, and having the material lying between the groove and bevel havingthe material at its under face nearv the inner edge compressed to mold a longi tudinalstitch-receiving groove in its under face, said groove being of suflicient depth to receive a major portion of the inseam stitch, substantially as described. I

3. As an article of manufacture a strip of welting for use in the manufacture of Welt shoes, consisting of a strip of welt material having the material at the inner margin of its upper face compressed toward its under face to form a bevel at the inner margin of of the upper face, substantially as described.

As an article of manufacture a strip of welting for use in the manufacture of welt shoes, consisting of a strip of welt material provided With a longitudinal stitch-receiving groove molded without the removal of material in its under face near the inner edge, and provided with a bevel molded without the removal of material at the inner edge of its upper face, substantially as described.

5. As an article of manufacture a strip of welting for use in the manufacture of welt shoes, consisting of a strip of welt material having the material at its under face near the inner edge compressed to form a stitchreceiving groove and having the material at the inner marginal edge of the upper face compressed and deflected toward the under face to form a bevel at theinner margin of the upper face, substantiall as described.

6. As an article of manu acture a strip of welting for use in the manufacture of Welt shoes, consisting of a strip of leather provided with a longitudinal stitch-receiving groove in its under face near the inner edge and having the inner marginal'portion of the upper or grain face molded without the removal of material toward the under or flesh face to form a bevel at the inner margin of the upper face, the face of the bevel being substantially covered with the grain fiber of the leather, substantially as described.

7. As an article of manufacture a strip of welting of indeterminate length for use in the manufacture of welt shoes, consisting of a strip of welt material bent or deflected laterally throughout its length to concave and convex the inner and outer edges, respectively, the fiber of the inner edge being crowded together, substantially as described.

8. As an article of manufacture a strip of welting of indeterminate length for use in the manufacture of welt sh0es,.consisting of astrip of welt material provided with a longitudinal groove in its under face. near the inner edge to receive the stitches of the inseam and a bevel at the inner margin of its upper face, said welt strip being bent or deflected laterally throughout its length to concave and convex the inner and outer edges respectively, the fibers of the inner edge being crowded together, substantially as described.

JAMES A. BROGAN.

Witnesses:

GEO. E. S'I'EBBINS, EDMUND G. BORDEN. 

